Apparatus and methods to incorporate external system to approve deployment provisioning

ABSTRACT

Methods and apparatus to customize deployment using approvals are disclosed. An example deployment approval manager can generate a first Approval Payload including an initial application component approval proposal of an application component that provides a logical template of an application. A deployment event broker can reply-back to the deployment approval manager with a second approval payload that includes a processed application component approval proposal.

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present disclosure relates generally to cloud computing and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus to incorporate an external system to approve deployment provisioning.

BACKGROUND

Virtualizing computer systems provide benefits such as the ability to execute multiple computer systems on a single hardware computer, replicating computer systems, moving computer systems among multiple hardware computers, and so forth.

“Infrastructure-as-a-Service” (also commonly referred to as “IaaS”) generally describes a suite of technologies provided by a service provider as an integrated solution to allow for elastic creation of a virtualized, networked, and pooled computing platform (sometimes referred to as a “cloud computing platform”). Enterprises may use IaaS as a business-internal organizational cloud computing platform (sometimes referred to as a “private cloud”) that gives an application developer access to infrastructure resources, such as virtualized servers, storage, and networking resources. By providing ready access to the hardware resources required to run an application, the cloud computing platform enables developers to build, deploy, and manage the lifecycle of a web application (or any other type of networked application) at a greater scale and at a faster pace than ever before.

Cloud computing environments may be composed of many processing units (e.g., servers). The processing units may be installed in standardized frames, known as racks, which provide efficient use of floor space by allowing the processing units to be stacked vertically. The racks may additionally include other components of a cloud computing environment such as storage devices, networking devices (e.g., switches), etc.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIGS. 1A-1C depict an example system constructed in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure for managing a cloud computing platform.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example generation of a multi-machine blueprint by the example blueprint manager of FIG. 1A.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example installation of deployed virtual machines and associated servers acting as hosts for deployment of component servers for a customer.

FIGS. 4A-4G illustrate example implementations of virtual appliances.

FIG. 5 illustrates deployment approval event notifications occurring in the context of the example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 of FIGS. 4B-4G

FIGS. 6A-6C is a flowchart representative of example of machine readable instructions which may be executed to implement an example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 of FIGS. 4B-4G to manage deployment approval of an application for deployment in an application deployment environment of a cloud computing platform provider.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an example processing platform capable of executing the example machine-readable instructions of the flowchart of FIGS. 6A-6C to implement the example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 of FIGS. 4B-4G.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Cloud computing is based on the deployment of many physical resources across a network, virtualizing the physical resources into virtual resources, and provisioning the virtual resources to perform cloud computing services and applications. Example systems for virtualizing computer systems are described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/903,374, entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MANAGING VIRTUAL AND REAL MACHINES,” filed Sep. 21, 2007, and granted as U.S. Pat. No. 8,171,485, U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/919,965, entitled “METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR MANAGING VIRTUAL AND REAL MACHINES,” filed Mar. 26, 2007, and U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/736,422, entitled “METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR VIRTUALIZED COMPUTING,” filed Dec. 12, 2012, all three of which are hereby incorporated herein by reference in their entirety.

Cloud computing platforms may provide many powerful capabilities for performing computing operations. However, taking advantage of these computing capabilities manually may be complex and/or require significant training and/or expertise. Prior techniques to providing cloud computing platforms and services often require customers to understand details and configurations of hardware and software resources to establish and configure the cloud computing platform. Methods and apparatus disclosed herein facilitate the management of virtual machine resources in cloud computing platforms.

A virtual machine is a software computer that, like a physical computer, runs an operating system and applications. An operating system installed on a virtual machine is referred to as a guest operating system. Because each virtual machine is an isolated computing environment, virtual machines (VMs) can be used as desktop or workstation environments, as testing environments, to consolidate server applications, etc. Virtual machines can run on hosts or clusters. The same host can run a plurality of VMs, for example.

As disclosed in detail herein, methods and apparatus disclosed herein provide for automation of management tasks such as provisioning multiple virtual machines for a multiple-machine computing system (e.g., a group of servers that inter-operate), linking provisioned virtual machines and tasks to desired systems to execute those virtual machines or tasks, and/or reclaiming cloud computing resources that are no longer in use. The improvements to cloud management systems (e.g., the vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) from VMware®, the vRealize Automation Cloud Automation Software from VMware®), interfaces, portals, etc. disclosed herein may be utilized individually and/or in any combination. For example, all or a subset of the described improvements may be utilized.

As used herein, “availability” refers to the level of redundancy required to provide the continuous operation expected for the workload domain. As used herein, “performance” refers to the computer processing unit (CPU) operating speeds (e.g., CPU gigahertz (GHz)), memory (e.g., gigabytes (GB) of random access memory (RAM)), mass storage (e.g., GB hard drive disk (HDD), GB solid state drive (SSD)), and power capabilities of a workload domain. As used herein, “capacity” refers to the aggregate number of resources (e.g., aggregate storage, aggregate CPU, etc.) across all servers associated with a cluster and/or a workload domain. In examples disclosed herein, the number of resources (e.g., capacity) for a workload domain is determined based on the redundancy, the CPU operating speed, the memory, the storage, the security, and/or the power requirements selected by a user. For example, more resources are required for a workload domain as the user-selected requirements increase (e.g., higher redundancy, CPU speed, memory, storage, security, and/or power options require more resources than lower redundancy, CPU speed, memory, storage, security, and/or power options).

Example Virtualization Environments

Many different types of virtualization environments exist. Three example types of virtualization environment are: full virtualization, paravirtualization, and operating system virtualization.

Full “virtualization”, as used herein, is a virtualization environment in which hardware resources are managed by a hypervisor to provide virtual hardware resources to a virtual machine. In a full virtualization environment, the virtual machines do not have direct access to the underlying hardware resources. In a typical full virtualization environment, a host operating system with embedded hypervisor (e.g., VMware ESXi®) is installed on the server hardware. Virtual machines including virtual hardware resources are then deployed on the hypervisor. A guest operating system is installed in the virtual machine. The hypervisor manages the association between the hardware resources of the server hardware and the virtual resources allocated to the virtual machines (e.g., associating physical random access memory (RAM) with virtual RAM). Typically, in full virtualization, the virtual machine and the guest operating system have no visibility and/or direct access to the hardware resources of the underlying server. Additionally, in full virtualization, a full guest operating system is typically installed in the virtual machine while a host operating system is installed on the server hardware. Example full virtualization environments include VMware ESX®, Microsoft Hyper-V®, and Kernel Based Virtual Machine (KVM).

“Paravirtualization”, as used herein, is a virtualization environment in which hardware resources are managed by a hypervisor to provide virtual hardware resources to a virtual machine, and guest operating systems are also allowed direct access to some or all of the underlying hardware resources of the server (e.g., without accessing an intermediate virtual hardware resource). In a typical paravirtualization system, a host operating system (e.g., a Linux-based operating system) is installed on the server hardware. A hypervisor (e.g., the Xen® hypervisor) executes on the host operating system. Virtual machines including virtual hardware resources are then deployed on the hypervisor. The hypervisor manages the association between the hardware resources of the server hardware and the virtual resources allocated to the virtual machines (e.g., associating physical random access memory (RAM) with virtual RAM). In paravirtualization, the guest operating system installed in the virtual machine is configured also to have direct access to some or all of the hardware resources of the server. For example, the guest operating system may be precompiled with special drivers that allow the guest operating system to access the hardware resources without passing through a virtual hardware layer. For example, a guest operating system may be precompiled with drivers that allow the guest operating system to access a sound card installed in the server hardware. Directly accessing the hardware (e.g., without accessing the virtual hardware resources of the virtual machine) may be more efficient, may allow for performance of operations that are not supported by the virtual machine and/or the hypervisor, etc.

“Operating system virtualization” is also referred to herein as container virtualization. As used herein, “operating system virtualization” refers to a system in which processes are isolated in an operating system. In a typical operating system virtualization system, a host operating system is installed on the server hardware. The host operating system of an operating system virtualization system is configured (e.g., utilizing a customized kernel) to provide isolation and resource management for processes that execute within the host operating system (e.g., applications that execute on the host operating system). The isolation of the processes is known as a container. Several containers may share a host operating system. Thus, a process executing within a container is isolated from other processes executing on the host operating system. Thus, operating system virtualization provides isolation and resource management capabilities without the resource overhead utilized by a full virtualization environment or a paravirtualization environment. Alternatively, the host operating system may be installed in a virtual machine of a full virtualization environment or a paravirtualization environment. Example operating system virtualization environments include Linux Containers LXC and LXD, DockerTM, OpenVZTM, etc.

In some instances, a data center (or pool of linked data centers) may include multiple different virtualization environments. For example, a data center may include hardware resources that are managed by a full virtualization environment, a paravirtualization environment, and an operating system virtualization environment. In such a data center, a workload may be deployed to any of the virtualization environments.

FIGS. 1A-1C depict an example system 100 constructed in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure for managing a cloud computing platform. The example system 100 includes an application director 106 and a cloud manager 138 to manage a cloud computing platform provider 110 as described in more detail below. As described herein, the example system 100 facilitates management of the cloud provider 110 and does not include the cloud provider 110. Alternatively, the system 100 could be included in the cloud provider 110.

The cloud computing platform provider 110 provisions virtual computing resources (e.g., virtual machines, or “VMs,” 114) that may be accessed by users of the cloud computing platform 110 (e.g., users associated with an administrator 116 and/or a developer 118) and/or other programs, software, device. etc.

An example application 102 of FIG. 1A includes multiple VMs 114. The example VMs 114 of FIG. 1A provide different functions within the application 102 (e.g., services, portions of the application 102, etc.). One or more of the VMs 114 of the illustrated example are customized by an administrator 116 and/or a developer 118 of the application 102 relative to a stock or out-of-the-box (e.g., commonly available purchased copy) version of the services and/or application components. Additionally, the services executing on the example VMs 114 may have dependencies one or more other ones of the VMs 114.

As illustrated in FIG. 1A, the example cloud computing platform provider 110 may provide multiple deployment environments 112, for example, for development, testing, staging, and/or production of applications. The administrator 116, the developer 118, other programs, and/or other devices may access services from the cloud computing platform provider 110, for example, via REST (Representational State Transfer) APIs (Application Programming Interface) and/or via any other client-server communication protocol. Example implementations of a REST API for cloud computing services include a vRealize Orchestrator (vRO) and/or vRealize Automation (vRA) API and a vCloud Director API available from VMware, Inc. The example cloud computing platform provider 110 provisions virtual computing resources (e.g., the VMs 114) to provide the deployment environments 112 in which the administrator 116 and/or the developer 118 can deploy multi-tier application(s). One particular example implementation of a deployment environment that may be used to implement the deployment environments 112A of FIG. 1A is vCloud DataCenter cloud computing services available from VMware, Inc.

In some examples disclosed herein, a lighter-weight virtualization is employed by using containers instead of VMs 114 as shown in the development environment 112B. Example containers 114 a are software constructs that run on top of a host operating system without the need for a hypervisor or a separate guest operating system. Unlike virtual machines, the containers 114 a do not instantiate their own operating systems. Like virtual machines, the containers 114 a are logically separate from one another. Numerous containers can run on a single computer, processor system and/or in the same development environment 112. Also like virtual machines, the containers 114 a can execute instances of applications or programs (e.g., an example application 102 a) separate from application/program instances executed by the other containers in the same development environment 112B.

The example application director 106 of FIG. 1A, which may be running in one or more VMs, orchestrates deployment of multi-tier applications onto one of the example deployment environments 112A, 112B, 112C. As illustrated in FIG. 1A, the example application director 106 includes a topology generator 120, a deployment plan generator 122, and a deployment director 124.

The example topology generator 120 generates a basic blueprint 126 of FIG. 1A that specifies a logical topology of an application to be deployed. The example basic blueprint 126 generally captures the structure of an application as a collection of application components executing on virtual computing resources. An example online store application basic blueprint 126 generated by the example topology generator 120 may specify a web application (e.g., in the form of a Java web application archive or “WAR” file including dynamic web pages, static web pages, Java servlets, Java classes, and/or other property, configuration and/or resources files that make up a Java web application) executing on an application server (e.g., Apache Tomcat application server) that uses a database (e.g., MongoDB) as a data store. As used herein, the term “application” generally refers to a logical deployment unit, including of one or more application packages and their dependent middleware and/or operating systems. Applications may be distributed across multiple VMs. Thus, in the example described above, the term “application” refers to the entire online store application, including application server and database components, rather than just the web application itself. In some instances, the application may include the underlying hardware and/or virtual computing hardware utilized to implement the components.

The example basic blueprint 126 of FIG. 1A may be assembled from items (e.g., templates) from a catalog 130, which is a listing of available virtual computing resources (e.g., VMs, networking, storage, etc.) that may be provisioned from the cloud computing platform provider 110 and available application components (e.g., software services, scripts, code components, application-specific packages) that may be installed on the provisioned virtual computing resources. The example of FIG. 1B shows a more detailed view of example catalog 130, explicitly showing for example Application Component 150 including Initial Application Component Properties 154 a and Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159. Examples of Application Component Properties 154 a shown in FIG. 1B include an Initial Virtual Machine Naming Property, an Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Property, and an Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Property. In other examples: the example Initial Virtual Machine Naming Property can be plural examples of Initial Virtual Machine Naming Properties 156 a, an example Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Property can be plural examples of Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Properties 157 a, and an example Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Property can be plural examples of Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Properties 158 a. The forgoing are related to VM's. For example, the Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Properties 158 a can be broadly directed to examples such as an initial Central Processing Unit (CPU) allocation property for VM's, and an initial memory allocation property for VM's, etc. FIG. 1B also explicitly shows for example Application Component 150 as including an Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159, which for example include a designated Approver of “Use Event Subscription” 159 a, and a designated Approval Level as External 159 b. As discussed in greater detail subsequently herein, the deployment approval policy associated with catalog items affects deployment provisioning approval for the catalog item.

The example catalog 130 in FIG. 1B may be pre-populated and/or customized by an administrator 116 (e.g., IT (Information Technology) or system administrator) that enters in specifications, configurations, properties, and/or other details about items in the catalog 130. Based on the application, the example blueprints 126 may define one or more dependencies between application components to indicate an installation order of the application components during deployment. For example, since a load balancer usually cannot be configured until a web application is up and running, the developer 118 may specify a dependency from an Apache service to an application code package.

The example deployment plan generator 122 of the example application director 106 of FIG. 1A generates a deployment plan 128 based on the basic blueprint 126 that includes deployment settings (e.g., virtual computing resources' cluster size, CPU, memory, networks, etc.) and an execution plan of tasks. The execution plan specifies an order in which virtual computing resources are provisioned and application components are installed, configured, and started. The example deployment plan 128 of FIG. 1A provides an IT administrator with a process-oriented view of the basic blueprint 126 that indicates discrete actions to be performed to deploy the application. Different deployment plans 128 may be generated from a single basic blueprint 126 to test prototypes (e.g., new application versions), to scale up and/or scale down deployments, and/or to deploy the application to different deployment environments 112A, 112B. 112C, etc. (e.g., for testing, staging, production). In this example the deployment plan 128 is separated and distributed as a series of local deployment plans having a series of tasks to be executed by the VMs 114 provisioned from the deployment environment 112A. Each VM 114 coordinates execution of each task with a centralized deployment module (e.g., the deployment director 124) to ensure that tasks are executed in an order that complies with dependencies specified in the application blueprint 126. The Application Director 106 can generate a Blueprint Display 135, as shown in FIG. 1A and as shown for example in greater detail in FIG. 1C. In the example of FIG. 1C, the Blueprint Display 135 displays an example Blueprint 126 showing for example a Visual Depiction of Application Component 160. In the example of FIG. 1C, the Application Component includes an example Load Balancer Component 162 topologically coupled with example Application Server Components 164 topologically coupled with Database Component 166.

The example deployment director 124 of FIG. 1A executes the deployment plan 128 by communicating with the cloud computing platform provider 110 via a cloud interface 132 to provision and configure the VMs 114 in the deployment environment 112A and/or containers 114 a in the deployment environment 112B. The example cloud interface 132 of FIG. 1A provides a communication abstraction layer by which the application director 106 may communicate with a heterogeneous mixture of cloud provider(s) 110 and/or deployment environments 112A, 112B, 112C, etc. The deployment director 124 provides each VM 114 and/or Containers 114A with a series of tasks specific to the receiving VM 114 and/or Containers 114A (herein referred to as a “local deployment plan”). Tasks are executed by the VMs 114 and/or Containers 114A to install, configure, and/or start one or more application components. For example, a task may be a script that, when executed by a VM 114 and/or Containers 114A, causes the VM 114 and/or Containers 114A to retrieve and install particular software packages from a central package repository 134. The example deployment director 124 of FIG. 1A coordinates with the VMs 114 and/or Containers 114A to execute the tasks in an order that observes installation dependencies between VMs 114 and/or Containers 114A according to the deployment plan 128. After the application has been deployed, the application director 106 may be utilized to monitor and/or modify (e.g., scale) the deployment.

The cloud manager 138 of FIG. 1A interacts with the components of the system 100 (e.g., the application director 106 and the cloud provider 110) to facilitate the management of the resources of the cloud provider 110. The example cloud manager 138 includes a blueprint manager 140 to facilitate the creation and management of multi-machine blueprints and a resource manager 144 to reclaim unused cloud resources. The cloud manager 138 may additionally include other components for managing a cloud environment.

The blueprint manager 140 of the illustrated example manages the creation of multi-machine blueprints that define the attributes of multiple virtual machines as a single group that can be provisioned, deployed, managed, etc. as a single unit. For example, a multi-machine blueprint may include definitions for multiple basic blueprints that make up a service (e.g., an e-commerce provider that includes web servers, application servers, and database servers). A basic blueprint is a definition of policies (e.g., hardware policies, security policies, network policies, etc.) for a single machine (e.g., a single virtual machine such as a web server virtual machine and/or container). Accordingly, the blueprint manager 140 facilitates more efficient management of multiple virtual machines and/or containers than manually managing (e.g., deploying) basic blueprints individually. Example management of multi-machine blueprints is described in further detail in conjunction with FIG. 2.

The example blueprint manager 140 of FIG. 1A additionally annotates basic blueprints and/or multi-machine blueprints to control how workflows associated with the basic blueprints and/or multi-machine blueprints are executed. A “workflow” as used herein is a series of actions and decisions to be executed in a virtual computing platform. The example system 100 of FIG. 1A includes first and second distributed execution manager(s) (DEM(s)) 146A and 146B to execute workflows. According to the illustrated example, the first DEM 146A includes a first set of characteristics and is physically located at a first location 148A. The second DEM 146B includes a second set of characteristics and is physically located at a second location 148B. The location and characteristics of a DEM may make that DEM more suitable for performing certain workflows. For example, a DEM may include hardware particularly suited for performance of certain tasks (e.g., high-end calculations), may be located in a desired area (e.g., for compliance with local laws that require certain operations to be physically performed within a country's boundaries), may specify a location or distance to other DEMS for selecting a nearby DEM (e.g., for reducing data transmission latency), etc. Thus, the example blueprint manager 140 of FIG. 1A annotates basic blueprints and/or multi-machine blueprints with capabilities that can be performed by a DEM that is labeled with the same or similar capabilities.

The resource manager 144 of the illustrated example facilitates recovery of cloud computing resources of the cloud provider 110 that are no longer being activity utilized. Automated reclamation may include identification, verification and/or reclamation of unused, underutilized, etc. resources to improve the efficiency of the running cloud infrastructure.

FIG. 2 illustrates an example implementation of the blueprint 126 as a multi-machine blueprint generated by the example blueprint manager 140 of FIG. 1. In the illustrated example of FIG. 2, three example basic blueprints (a web server blueprint 202, an application server blueprint 204, and a database (DB) server blueprint 206) have been created (e.g., by the topology generator 120). For example, the web server blueprint 202, the application server blueprint 204, and the database server blueprint 206 may define the components of an e-commerce online store.

The example blueprint manager 140 provides a user interface for a user of the blueprint manager 140 (e.g., the administrator 116, the developer 118, etc.) to specify blueprints (e.g., basic blueprints and/or multi-machine blueprints) to be assigned to an instance of a multi-machine blueprint 208. For example, the user interface may include a list of previously generated basic blueprints (e.g., the web server blueprint 202, the application server blueprint 204, the database server blueprint 206, etc.) to allow selection of desired blueprints. The blueprint manager 140 combines the selected blueprints into the definition of the multi-machine blueprint 208 and stores information about the blueprints in a multi-machine blueprint record defining the multi-machine blueprint 208. The blueprint manager 140 may additionally include a user interface to specify other characteristics corresponding to the multi-machine blueprint 208. For example, a creator of the multi-machine blueprint 208 may specify a minimum number and a maximum number of each blueprint component of the multi-machine blueprint 208 that may be provisioned during provisioning of the multi-machine blueprint 208.

Accordingly, any number of virtual machines (e.g., the virtual machines associated with the blueprints in the multi-machine blueprint 208) and/or containers may be managed collectively. For example, the multiple virtual machines corresponding to the multi-machine blueprint 208 may be provisioned based on an instruction to provision the multi-machine blueprint 208, may be power cycled by an instruction, may be shut down by an instruction, may be booted by an instruction, etc. As illustrated in FIG. 2, an instruction to provision the multi-machine blueprint 208 may result in the provisioning of a multi-machine service formed from one or more VMs 114 that includes virtualized web server(s) 210A, virtualized application server(s) 210B, and virtualized database server(s) 210C. The number of virtual machines and/or containers provisioned for each blueprint may be specified during the provisioning of the multi-machine blueprint 208 (e.g., subject to the limits specified during creation or management of the multi-machine blueprint 208).

The multi-machine blueprint 208 maintains the reference to the basic blueprints 202, 204, 206. Accordingly, changes made to the blueprints (e.g., by a manager of the blueprints different than the manager of the multi-machine blueprint 208) may be incorporated into future provisioning of the multi-machine blueprint 208. Accordingly, an administrator maintaining the source blueprints (e.g., an administrator charged with managing the web server blueprint 202) may change or update the source blueprint and the changes may be automatically propagated to the machines provisioned from the multi-machine blueprint 208. For example, if an operating system update is applied to a disk image referenced by the web server blueprint 202 (e.g., a disk image embodying the primary disk of the web server blueprint 202), the updated disk image is utilized when deploying the multi-machine blueprint 210. Additionally, the blueprints may specify that the machines 210A, 210B, 210C of the multi-machine service 210 provisioned from the multi-machine blueprint 208 operate in different environments. For example, some components may be physical machines, some may be on-premise virtual machines, and some may be virtual machines at a cloud service.

Several multi-machine blueprints may be generated to provide one of one or more varied or customized services. For example, if virtual machines deployed in the various States of the United States require different settings, a multi-machine blueprint could be generated for each such state. The multi-machine blueprints could reference the same build profile and/or disk image, but may include different settings specific to each state. For example, the deployment workflow may include an operation to set a locality setting of an operating system to identify a particular State in which a resource is physically located. Thus, a single disk image may be utilized for multiple multi-machine blueprints reducing the amount of storage space for storing disk images compared with storing a disk image for each customized setting.

FIG. 3 illustrates an example installation of deployed appliances or virtual appliances (vAs) (e.g. VMs 114 and or containers 114 a) and associated virtualized servers acting as hosts for deployment of component servers (e.g., Web server, application server, database server, etc.) for a customer. The vAs can be deployed as an automation tool, for example, used to deliver VMs and associated applications for on-premise automation and/or handling of external cloud resources (e.g., Microsoft Azure™, Amazon Web Services™, etc.).

As shown in the example of FIG. 3, an installation 300 includes a load balancer (LB) 310 to assign tasks and/or manage access among a plurality of vAs 320, 322, 324. Each vA 320-324 is a deployed VM 114 or container 114 a. In this example, the vA 320 communicates with a plurality of component or host servers 330 a, 334 a, 336 a which store components for execution by users (e.g., Web server 210A with Web components, App server 210B with application components, DB server 210C with database components, etc.). As shown in the example of FIG. 3, component servers 334 a, 336 a can stem from component server 330 a rather than (or in addition to) directly from the virtual appliance 320, although the vA 320 can still communicate with such servers 334 a, 336 a. The LB 310 enables the multiple vAs 320-324 and multiple servers 330-336 to appear as one device to a user. Access to functionality can then be distributed among appliances 320-324 by the LB 310 and among servers 330 a-336 a by the respective appliance 320, for example.

In the example installation 300, each vA 320, 322, 324 includes a management endpoint 340, 342, 344. Each component server 330 a, 334 a, 336 a includes a management agent 350 a, 354 a, 356 a. The management agents 350 a-356 a can communicate with their respective endpoint 340 to facilitate transfer of data, execution of tasks, etc., for example. The LB 310 can use least response time, round-robin, and/or other method to balance traffic to vAs 320-324 and servers 330-336, for example.

In certain examples, a graphical user interface associated with a front end of the load balancer 310 guides a customer through one or more questions to determine system requirements for an installation 300 to be performed. Once the customer has completed the questionnaire and provided firewall access to install the agents 350 a-356 a, the agents 350 a-356 a communicate with the endpoint 340 without customer involvement. Thus, for example, if a new employee needs a Microsoft Windows® machine, a manager selects an option (e.g., clicks a button, etc.) via the graphical user interface to install a VM 114 and/or container 114 a that is managed through the installation 300. To the user, he or she is working on a single machine, but behind the scenes, the virtual appliance (e.g. vA 320) is accessing different servers (e.g. Component Servers 330 a-336 a) depending upon what functionality is to be executed.

In certain examples, agents 350-356 are deployed in a same data center as the endpoint 340 to which the agents 350-356 are associated. The deployment can include a plurality of agent servers 330-336 distributed worldwide, and the deployment can be scalable to accommodate additional server(s) with agent(s) to increase throughput and concurrency, for example.

As will be discussed in greater detail subsequently herein, one or more of the virtual appliances (vAs) can be configured as a Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324. Similar to vA 320 communicating with the plurality of component or host servers 330 a, 334 a, 336 a, the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 can similarly communicate with another plurality of component or host servers 330 b, 334 b, 336 b, which can likewise store components for execution by users (e.g., Web server 210A with Web components, App server 210B with application components, DB server 210C with database components, etc.). Each component server 330 b, 334 b, 336 b associated with the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 can include a respective management agent 350 b, 354 b, 356 b. These management agents 350 b-356 b can communicate with their respective endpoint 344 of Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 to facilitate transfer of data, execution of tasks, etc., for example.

FIGS. 4A-4G illustrate example implementations of virtual appliances. It should be understood that FIG. 4A illustrates a generalized example implementation of a vA 320 of FIG. 3. FIGS. 4B-4F illustrate a more particularized implementation of the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324. Looking first at the example of FIG. 4A, the vA 320 of this example includes a Service Provisioner 410 a, an orchestrator 420 a, an event broker 430 a, an authentication provider 440 a, an internal reverse proxy 450 a, and a database 460 a. The components 410 a, 420 a, 430 a, 440 a, 450 a, 460 a of the vA 320 may be implemented by one or more of the VMs 114 or containers 114 a. The example Service Provisioner 410 a provides services to provision interfaces (e.g., Web interface, application interface, etc.) for the vA 320. The example orchestrator (e.g., vCO) 420 a is an embedded or internal orchestrator for processing workflows, which can leverage a provisioning manager, such as the application director 106 and/or catalog database 130 and/or cloud manager 138, to provision VM services but is embedded in the vA 320. For example, the vCO 420 a can be used to invoke a blueprint to provision a manager for services.

Example services can include catalog services, identity services, component registry services, event broker services, IaaS, XaaS, etc. Catalog services provide a user interface via which a user can request provisioning of different preset environments (e.g., a VM including an operating system and software and some customization, etc.), for example. Identity services facilitate authentication and authorization of users and assigned roles, for example. The component registry maintains information corresponding to installed and deployed services (e.g., uniform resource locators for services installed in a VM/vA, etc.), for example. The event broker provides a messaging broker for event-based communication, for example. The IaaS provisions one or more VMs and/or containers for a customer via the vA 320. The XaaS extends this to also request, approve, provision, operate, and decommission any type of catalog items (i.e storage, applications, accounts, and anything else that the catalog provides as a service).

The example event broker 430 a of FIG. 4A provides a mechanism to handle tasks which are transferred between services with the orchestrator 420 a. The example authentication provider 440 a (e.g., VMware Horizon™ services, etc.) authenticates access to services and data, for example.

The components of the vA 320 access each other through REST API calls behind the internal reverse proxy 450 a (e.g., a high availability (HA) proxy HAProxy) which provides a high availability load balancer and proxy for Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) based application requests. In this example, the proxy 450 a forwards communication traffic from within the vA 320 and/or between vAs 320, 322, 324 of FIG. 3 to the appropriate component(s) of the vA 320. In certain examples, services access the local host/proxy 450 a on a particular port, and the call is masked by the proxy 450 a and forwarded to the particular component of the vA 320. Since the call is masked by the proxy 450 a, components can be adjusted within the vA 320 without impacting outside users.

FIGS. 4B-4G illustrate a more particularized example implementation of the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324. In the example of FIGS. 4B-4G the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 includes a Service Provisioner 410 b and a Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b. The Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can include a Deployment Approval Event Record 422, Deployment Approval Event Information 423, a Deployment Approval Event Notification Generator 424, a Deployment Approval Timer 425 and a Deployment Approval Processor 426, as shown in detail in the example of FIG. 4C. The Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 further includes Extensible Approval Service 420 c, which includes Plugin 420 d. The Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 further includes Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e. The Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e, as shown in detail in the example of FIG. 4E, can include a Deployment Approval Workflow Communications Manager 427, a Deployment Approval Workflow Execution Unit 428, and Deployment Approval Workflow 429. The Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 further includes a Deployment Event Broker 430 b. The Deployment Event Broker 430 b can include a Deployment Event Subscription Manager 431, a Deployment Approval Topic Registry 432, and a Pre-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 a including a Pre-Approval Provisioning Schema 434 a, and a Post-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 b including a Post-Approval Provisioning Schema 434 b. The Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 further includes an Authentication Provider 440 b, a Proxy 450 b and a Catalog Item Application Component Properties and Approvals Database 460 b. As shown in greater detail in the example of FIGS. 4F and 4G the Catalog Item Approval Database 460 b can include Application Component 150. Application Component 150 can include Initial Application Component Properties 154 a, Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b, Processed application component approval proposals 154 c, Processed Application Component Properties and Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159. Initial Application Component Properties 154 a can include Initial Virtual Machine Naming Properties 156 a, Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Properties 157 a and Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Properties 158 a. Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b can include an initial virtual machine naming approval proposal 156 b, Initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal 157 b and Initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal 158 b. Processed application component approval proposals 154 c can include Processed Virtual Machine Naming Approval 156 c, Processed Virtual Machine Addressing Approval 157 c and Processed Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Approval 158 c. Processed Application Component Properties can include Processed Virtual Machine Naming Properties, Processed Virtual Machine Addressing Properties, Processed Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Properties, application deployment approval policy 159, approver designation 159 a and approval level 159 b.

The components 150, 154 a, 154 b, 154 c, 156 a, 156 b, 156 c, 157 a, 157 b, 157 c, 158 a, 158 b, 158 c, 159, 159 a, 159 b, 410 b, 420 b, 420 c, 420 d, 420 e, 422, 423, 424, 425, 426, 427, 428, 429, 430 b, 431, 432, 433, 434, 440 b, 450 b, and 460 b of the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 may be implemented by one or more VM's 114 or containers 114 a.

Accordingly, similar to what was discussed previously in connection with FIG. 4A, in the example of FIGS. 4B-4G, the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 likewise includes a Service Provisioner 410 b and an internal reverse proxy 450 b. The Service Provisioner 410 b provides services to provision interfaces (e.g., Web interface, application interface, etc.) for the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324. The proxy 450 b forwards communication traffic from within the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 and/or between vAs 320, 322, 324 of FIG. 3 to the appropriate component(s) of the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324. The components of the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 access each other through REST API calls behind the internal reverse proxy 450 b (e.g., a high availability (HA) proxy HAProxy) which provides a high availability load balancer and proxy for Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) based application requests.

Further, the previous discussions of the example orchestrator (e.g., vCO) 420 a are likewise applicable to the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b and the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e. The Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b and the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can likewise be embedded or internal, but also can be external, and can function as orchestrators for processing workflows. The Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b and the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can likewise leverage the provisioning manager, such as the application director 106 and/or catalog database 130 and/or cloud manager 138, to provision VM services. The application director 106 and/or catalog database 130 and/or cloud manager 138 can be embedded in the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324. In an example, the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b, and the example Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can be used to invoke a blueprint to provision a manager for services.

As another example, the Catalog Item Application Component Properties and Approvals Database 460 b shown in FIG. 4B (and shown in greater detail in FIGS. 4F and 4G) can leverage the catalog database 130 shown in FIG. 1A, so that Catalog Item Application Component Properties and Approvals Database 460 b can include Application Component 150 including Initial Application Component Properties 154 a and Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159. Examples of Application Component Properties 154 a from the example of FIG. 1B and also in the example of FIG. 4F include an Initial Virtual Machine Naming Property, an Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Property, and an Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Property. In other examples: the example Initial Virtual Machine Naming Property can be plural examples of Initial Virtual Machine Naming Properties 156 a, an example Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Property can be plural examples of Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Properties 157 a, and an example Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Property can be plural examples of Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Properties 158 a. The forgoing are related to VM's and/or containers. For example, the Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Properties 158 a can be broadly directed to examples such as an initial Central Processing Unit (CPU) allocation property for VM's and/or containers, and an initial memory allocation property for VM's, and/or containers etc.

The deployment approval policy can be applied to the application component in the database. The deployment approval manager can select from among the plurality of initial application component properties to propose for approval in the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal in accordance with the Deployment Approval Policy. For example, the plurality of Initial Application Component Properties can include a first grouping of Initial Application Component Properties. In another example the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal proposing approval of one of the Initial Application Component Properties is the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal proposing approval of the first grouping of Initial Application Component Properties.

Examples of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b shown in FIG. 4F include Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal 156 b, Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal 157 b and Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Approval Proposal 158 b. Examples of the Processed Application Component Approval Proposals 154 c shown in FIG. 4G include Processed Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal 156 c, Processed Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal 157 c and Processed Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Approval Proposal 158 c.

As will be discussed in greater detail subsequently herein, after the Deployment Event Broker 430 b replies back to the Approval Manager Service 420 b with the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal, the Approval Manager Service 420 b can use the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal to determine approval of one of the initial application component properties based upon the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.

The Application Component 150 can provide a logical template of Application 102, 102 a for deployment in an Application Deployment Environment 112. The Catalog Item Application Component Properties and Approvals Database 460 b can include the Application Component 150 to provide the logical template of the Application 102, 102 a.

The example Deployment Approval Manager Service, also referenced more generally as Deployment Approval Manager 420 b, can be implemented as a service. As mentioned previously, various services can include catalog services, identity services, component registry services, event broker services, IaaS, XaaS, etc. Using the IaaS, the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b and/or the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can provision one or more VMs for the customer via the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324. This can be extended using the XaaS, so that the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b and/or the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can provide for various deployment activities (e.g. requesting, approving, provisioning, operating, and/or decommissioning) with respect to any type of catalog database 130 items (e.g., storage, applications, accounts, and anything else that the catalog database 130 provides as a service).

As mentioned previously, Catalog services provide the user interface via which the user can request provisioning of different preset environments (e.g., a VM including an operating system and software and some customization, etc.), for example. When a user requests a catalog item to which an approval policy is applied that includes the “Use Event Subscription” Approver designation, this is an example of an occurrence of a deployment approval event (a deployment approval event occurrence.) For example, the catalog item can be an Application Component 150, and an Applied Deployment Approval Policy 154 can be associated with the Application Component 150, wherein the Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159 can have both a designated Approver: Use Event Subscription 159 a and also a designated Approval Level: External 159 b, as shown as included in the database Catalog 130 of FIGS. 1B and 1 n the Catalog Item Application Component Properties and Approvals Database 460 b of FIG. 4F. Accordingly, a user request for the Application Component 150 is an example of a deployment approval event occurrence.

The Approval Manager Service 420 b shown in FIG. 4B (and shown in greater detail in FIG. 4C) can be associated with the Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159 in the Catalog Item Approval Database 460 b. The Approval Manager Service 420 b can include a Deployment Approval Event Record 422 that records Deployment Approval Event information 423 about the Deployment Approval Event Occurrence. For example, the Approval Manager Service 420 b can include a Deployment Approval Event Record 422 that records Deployment Approval Event Information 423 about the user requesting the Application Component 150. The Deployment Approval Event Record 422 that records Deployment Approval Event Information 423 about the deployment approval event occurrence can include a Deployment Approval Event Log.

The Deployment Approval Event Information 423 can also include information of at least one of, property names, property values, information about the request, identifier for the source request, name of the requested item, description of the requested item, justification provided by the user specifying why the request is required, description entered by the user specifying the purpose of the request, an approval level identifier (ID), an approval level name, a time the approval request is created, a principal identifier (ID) of the user for whom the source request is initiated, a business group identified (ID), a principal identifier id of the user who actually submits the request, information about the source of the request, identifier of the source object, as defined by an intiator service, identifier of the service which initiated the approval, and/or identifier of a class to which the source object belongs. The Deployment Approval Event Information 423 can be included in the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal in a First Approval Payload of a First Deployment Approval Event Notification.

For example, the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b shown in FIG. 4B (and shown in greater detail in FIG. 4C) can include a Deployment Approval Event Record 422 that records Deployment Approval Event Information 423 about the Deployment Approval Event Occurrence. For example, the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can include a Deployment Approval Event Record 422 that records Deployment Approval Event information 423 about the user requesting the Application Component 150. For example, the Deployment Approval Event Record 422 that records Deployment Approval Event Information 423 about the deployment Approval event occurrence can include the Deployment Approval Event Log.

The Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can include a Deployment Approval Processor 426 to process the Deployment Approval Event Information, and can further include a Deployment Approval Event Notification Generator 424. The Deployment Approval Event Notification Generator 424 of the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can generate a First Deployment Approval Event Notification in response to the Deployment Approval Event Record 422 that records Deployment Approval Event Information 423 about a deployment approval event occurrence. The first Deployment Approval Event Notification can include Deployment Approval Event Information 423, and can include a First Approval Payload including the initial application component approval proposal.

The initial application component approval proposal of the First Approval Payload can include at least one of an initial virtual machine naming approval proposal, an initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal, and an initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal. The initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal can be broadly directed to examples such as an initial Central Processing Unit (CPU) allocation approval proposal for VM's, and an initial memory allocation approval proposal for VM's, etc.

An example deployment approval policy can be applied to the Application Component 150 in the database 460 b (e.g. Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159.) The example deployment approval manager 420 b can generate the initial application component approval proposal, for example via the Deployment Approval Processor 426 and the Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159. The Initial Application Component Approval Proposal can include at least one of: an initial virtual machine naming approval proposal, an initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal, and an initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal.

In another example, the initial application component approval proposal can be a plurality of Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b. The deployment approval policy is applied to the Application Component 150 in the Database 460 b (e.g. Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159). The Deployment Approval Manager 420 can select from among the plurality of Initial Application Component Properties 154 a to select for the Initial application component approval proposals 154 b in accordance with the deployment approval policy 159. The Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b can include at least one of: an initial virtual machine naming approval proposal, an initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal, and an initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal. In yet another example, the selected initial application component property can be a first selected grouping of initial application component properties. The generating of the initial application component approval proposal can include selecting the first selected grouping of initial application component properties to generate the initial application component approval proposal. For example, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 can select the first selected grouping of initial application component properties to select for the initial application component approval proposal. For example, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 can use wildcards and/or have multiple sub-values in a value field, which can be separated by a pre-defined symbol, to select the first selected grouping of initial application component properties to select for the initial application component approval proposal.

As already mentioned, the First Deployment Approval Event Notification can include Deployment Approval Event Information 423, and can include a First Approval Payload including the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal. The First Approval Payload of the First Deployment Event Notification can include a serialized form of at least a portion of the Deployment Approval Event Record 422 that records the Deployment Approval Event Information 423 about the deployment approval event occurrence. The Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can generate the First Deployment Approval Event Notification in response to the Deployment Approval Event Record 422 that records Deployment Approval Event Information 423 about the deployment approval event occurrence.

The Deployment Approval Event Notification Generator 424 of the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can send the First Deployment Approval Event Notification to the Deployment Event Broker 430 b. For example, the Deployment Approval Event Notification Generator 424 of the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can submit the First Deployment Approval Event Notification to the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 (selected from Pre-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 a and Post Approval Provisioning Topic 433 b) of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b for publication to the Extensible Approval Service 420 c. The Deployment Event Broker 430 b can consume the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 501 submitted by the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b. Authentication provider 440 b can authenticate access to the Deployment Event Broker 430 b.

The Deployment Approval Event Broker 430 b of this example includes a scalable distributed service. The Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can start the Deployment Approval Timer 425 running, after the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b sends the First Deployment Approval Event Notification to the Deployment Event Broker 430 b. The Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can wait, for a predetermined period of time as indicated using the Deployment Approval Timer 425, for a responsive event notification (e.g. a reply-back) from the Deployment Event Broker 430 b. For example, if the predetermined time period is 24 hours, then the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can wait for 24 hours a reply-back from the Deployment Event Broker 430 b. If the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b receives no reply-back from the Deployment Event Broker 430 b within the predetermined time period as indicated by the Deployment Approval Timer 425, then the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can notify the user.

The Deployment Event Broker 430 b shown in FIG. 4B, and shown in greater detail in FIG. 4D can include a Deployment Event Subscription Manager 431 and a Deployment Approval Topic Registry 432. The Deployment Event Broker 430 b can include Approval Provisioning Topics 433. At least one of the Approval Provisioning Topics 433 can be selected (e.g., at least one of Pre-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 a and Post-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 b can be selected) to publish a First Deployment Approval Event Notification received from the Approval Manager Service 420 b. For example, the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can include selectable first and second Approval Provisioning Topics, wherein the first Approval Provisioning Topic 433 a of the Deployment Event Broker 433 can be a Pre-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 a having a Preapproval Provisioning Schema 434 a, and the second Approval Provisioning Topic 433 b of the Deployment Event Broker can be a Post-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 b having a Post-Approval Provisioning Schema 434 b. The Deployment Event Broker 430 b can publish the First Deployment Approval Event Notification, via a selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 from among the first and second Approval Provisioning Topic 433 a,433 b (e.g. selected from Pre-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 a and Post-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 b), in response to receiving the First Deployment Approval Event Notification received the Approval Manager Service 420 b.

The Approval Manager Service 420 b can select the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 from among the first and second Approval Provisioning Topics 433 a, 433 b based on the Applied Deployment Approval Policy 154 for approving provisioning of the associated Application Component 150. For example, if the Applied Deployment Approval Policy 154 for approving provisioning of the associated Application Component 150 is to provision the Application Component 150 prior to the Approval Manager Service 420 b indicating that approval is complete, then the Approval Manager Service 420 b can select the Pre-approval Provisioning Topic 433. If the Applied Deployment Approval Policy 154 for approving provisioning of the associated Application Component 150 is to provision the Application Component 150 after the Approval Manager Service 420 b indicating that approval is complete, then the Approval Manager Service 420 b can select the Post-approval Provisioning Topic 435. The Deployment Event Broker 430 b can include a Deployment Event Subscription Manager 431 to manage subscriptions to the topics 433 a, 433 b. Topic subscriptions can be registered in the Deployment Approval Topic Registry 432.

Pre-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 a includes a Pre-Approval Provisioning Schema 434 a. Post-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 b includes a Post-Approval Provisioning Schema 434 b. The Deployment Event Broker 430 b includes Pre-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 a and/or Post-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 b, e.g., selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433, to publish the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 502 to the Extensible Approval Service 420 c, in response to the Deployment Event Broker 430 b consuming the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 501.

The Extensible Approval Service 420 c can include at least one Plugin 420 d so as to facilitate extensibility of the Extensible Approval Service 420 c. The Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can be employed to process a deployment approval workflow 429. The Plugin 420 d of the Extensible Approval Service 420 c can facilitate communication between the Extensible Approval Service 420 c and the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e. The Extensible Approval Service 420 c can generate a Deployment Approval Workflow Processing Request 511 in response to the First Deployment Approval Notification 502. The Deployment Approval Workflow Processing Request 511 can include the Initial application component approval proposal.

Examples of the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e shown in FIG. 4B are shown in greater detail in FIG. 4E. As shown in FIG. 4E, the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can include a Deployment Approval Workflow Communications Manager 427 to manage communications with the Deployment Approval Workflow Processors 420 e. Additionally, the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can include Deployment Approval Workflow Execution Unit 428 to process the Deployment Approval Workflow 429.

The Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can process the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 to process the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal of the First Approval Payload into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal to be included in the Second Approval Payload. As mentioned previously, The Initial Application Component Approval Proposal of the First Approval Payload can include at least one of an initial virtual machine naming approval proposal, an Initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal, and an Initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal. The Processed Application Component Approval Proposal of the Second Approval Payload can include at least one of a Processed Virtual Machine Naming Approval, a Processed Virtual Machine Addressing Approval, and a Processed Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Approval Proposal.

The Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can process the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 in response to the Deployment Approval Workflow Processing Request 511. The Deployment Approval Workflow 429 can process the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. In another example, the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal can be a plurality of Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b, and the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor can process the Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b into a plurality of Processed Application Component Approval Proposals 154 c.

For example, an Initial Application Component Approval Proposal of the First Approval Payload can be processed by the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e into a Processed Application Component Approval Proposal to be included in a Second Approval Payload of a Second Deployment Approval Event Notification. The Processed Application Component Approval Proposal can indicate approval and/or disapproval of at least part of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal. Further, in the case of disapproval of at least part of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal, the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal can include an approved counterproposal to at least part of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal.

For example, part of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal can include the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal (for example “foo-machine-name”). When processed by the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e, the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal (for example “foo-machine-name”) part of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal can be processed to indicate approval or disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal (for example approval or disapproval of example “foo-machine-name”). The indication of approval or disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal can be included in the Processed Application Component Approval. Moreover, in the case of disapproval, for example disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal (for example disapproval of “foo-machine-name”), the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal can include an approved counterproposal to at least part of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal, e.g., an approved counterproposal to the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal, e.g., “my-foo-machine-name” can be included as an approved counterproposal to “foo-machine-name”. The approved counter proposal “my-foo-machine-name” can be included in the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal, to be included in the Second Approval Payload of the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification.

As another example, the Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal (for example an address reservation “198.111.111”) can be processed into a Processed Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal, indicating approval or disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal. Moreover, in the case of disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal, e.g., disapproval of an address reservation “198.111.111”, the Processed Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal can include an approved counterproposal, for example an approved counterproposal address reservation “198.999.999”.

As another example, the Initial Virtual Machine Memory Allocation Approval Proposal (for example “4 Gigabytes of Memory”) of the First Approval Payload can be processed into a Processed Virtual Machine Memory Allocation Approval Proposal, indicating approval or disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Memory Allocation Approval Proposal. Moreover, in the case of disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Memory Allocation Approval Proposal, e.g., disapproval of “4 Gigabytes of Memory”, the Processed Virtual Machine Memory Allocation Approval Proposal can include an approved counterproposal, for example an approved counterproposal “2 Gigabytes of Memory”, to be included in the Second Approval Payload.

As another example, the Initial Virtual Machine Central Processing Unit (CPU) Allocation Approval Proposal (for example “4 CPUs”) of the First Approval Payload can be processed into the Processed Virtual Machine Central Processing Unit (CPU) Allocation Approval Proposal, indicating approval or disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Central Processing Unit (CPU) Allocation Approval Proposal. Moreover, in the case of disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Central Processing Unit (CPU) Allocation Approval Proposal, e.g., disapproval of “4 CPUs”, the Processed Virtual Machine Central Processing Unit (CPU) Allocation Approval Proposal can include an approved counterproposal, for example an approved counterproposal “2 CPU's” to be included in the Second Approval Payload.

Processing of the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 can start an external approval interaction with one or more users through, for example, email or other user notification and/or can go to an external 3rd party service for approval. Processing of the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 can await finishing processing for receiving an approval (and/or disapproval) answer from the external approval interaction with one or more users and/or the 3rd party service. For example, when the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e receives an approval answer (and/or disapproval answer) from the external approval interaction with one or more users and/or the 3rd party service, processing of the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 can finish. The approval answer (and/or disapproval answer) can provide for indication of approval or disapproval, depending on whether approval is approved or disapproved by the external approval interaction with one or more users and/or the 3rd party service.

The Extensible Approval Service 420 c can be in communication with the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e to determine whether the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e is finished processing the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 (e.g. whether the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e is finished processing the Initial application component approval proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.) The Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can respond to the Extensible Approval Service 420 c with the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal to be included in the Second Approval Payload, after the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e finishes processing of the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 (e.g. after the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e is finished processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.) The Extensible Approval Service 420 c can generate the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503 in response to an occurrence of the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e finishing processing of the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 (e.g. generate the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503 in response to an occurrence of the Workflow Processor 420 e finishing processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.) The Second Deployment Approval Event Notification includes the Second Approval Payload. The Second Approval Payload includes the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.

The selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can be repliable. For example, as among the Approval Provisioning Topics 433 at least one of Pre-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 a and Post-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 b can be selected, and the of Pre-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 a and Post-Approval Provisioning Topic 433 b can be repliable. The Extensible Approval Service 420 c can reply back to the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b with the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503 including the Second Approval Payload. In turn, the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can reply back to the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b with the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 504 including the second approval payload. The Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can determine approval of one of the Initial Application Component Properties based upon the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.

In another example, the Processed application component approval proposal can be a plurality of Processed Application Component Approval Proposals 154 c, and the Deployment Approval Manager can determine approval of the Initial Application Component Properties based upon the Processed Application Component Approval Proposals 154 c.

For example, as mentioned previously herein, the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal can indicate approval and/or disapproval of at least part of the Initial Application Component Proposal. Accordingly, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can determine approval of one of the Initial Application Component Properties based upon the indication of approval and/or disapproval of at least part of the Initial Application Component Proposal in the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.

Further, as mentioned previously herein, in the case of disapproval of at least part of the Initial Application Component Proposal, the Processed Application Component Approval can include the approved counterproposal to at least part of the Initial Application Component Proposal. Accordingly, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can modify one of the Initial Application Component Properties based upon the approved counterproposal to at least part of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal in the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. For example, as mentioned previously, part of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal can include the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal (for example “foo-machine-name”). When processed by the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e, the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal (for example “foo-machine-name”) part of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal can be processed to indicate approval or disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal (for example approval or disapproval of example “foo-machine-name”). The indication of approval or disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal can be included in the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. Moreover, in the case of disapproval, for example disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal (for example disapproval of “foo-machine-name”), the Processed Application Component Approval can include an approved counterproposal to at least part of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal, e.g., the approved counterproposal to the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal, e.g., “my-foo-machine-name” can be included as the approved counterproposal to “foo-machine-name”. The approved counter proposal “my-foo-machine-name” can be included in the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal, to be included in the Second Approval Payload of the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification. Accordingly, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can determine approval of the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Property based upon the indication of approval and/or disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal in the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal, e.g. can determine disapproval of “foo-machine-name” based on the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. Moreover, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can modify the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Property, e.g., modify “foo-machine-name” to “my-foo-machine-name”, based upon the approved counterproposal to the Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal in the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.

Similarly, as another example, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can determine approval of the Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Property based upon the indication of approval and/or disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal in the Processed Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal, e.g., can determine disapproval of the address reservation “198.111.111” based on the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. Moreover, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can modify the Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Property, e.g., modify “198.111.111” to “198.999.999”, based upon the approved counterproposal to the Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal in the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.

Similarly, as another example, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can determine approval of the Initial Virtual Machine Memory Allocation Property based upon the indication of approval and/or disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Memory Allocation Approval Proposal in the Processed Virtual Machine Memory Allocation Approval Proposal, e.g., can determine disapproval of “4 Gigabytes of Memory” based on the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. Moreover, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can modify the Initial Virtual Machine Memory Allocation Property, e.g., can modify “4 Gigabytes of Memory” to “2 Gigabytes of Memory” based upon the approved counterproposal to the Initial Virtual Machine Memory Allocation Approval Proposal in the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.

Similarly, as another example, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can determine approval of the Initial Virtual Machine Central Processing Unit (CPU) Allocation Property based upon the indication of approval and/or disapproval of the Initial Virtual Machine Central Processing Unit (CPU) Allocation Approval Proposal in the Processed Virtual Machine Central Processing Unit (CPU) Allocation Approval Proposal, e.g. can determine disapproval of “4 CPUs” based on the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. Moreover, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can modify the Initial Virtual Machine Central Processing Unit (CPU) Allocation Property, e.g., modify “4 CPUs” to “2 CPUs” based upon the approved counterproposal to the Initial Virtual Machine Central Processing Unit (CPU) Allocation Approval Proposal in the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.

FIG. 5 illustrates deployment approval event notifications occurring in the context of the example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 of FIGS. 4B-4G. In the example of FIG. 5, included are Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b, Deployment Event Broker 430 b, Extensible Approval Service 420 c including Plugin 420 d and Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e. The Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can generate a First Deployment Approval Event Notification that includes a First Approval Payload. The First Approval Payload includes the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal. The Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can submit the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 501, including the First Approval Payload, to the Deployment Event Broker 430 b for publication. Example Schemas 434 a, 434 b of the Approval Provisioning Topics 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can use a data structure having a variable-length element like a property array, or in this case an initial approval array (e.g. key-value pair) for storing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal of the First Approval Payload, as shown for example in FIG. 5. As a general matter, in the example topic-based system shown in the figures, event notifications are published by event notification producers/generators to the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b, and in turn the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 publishes the event notifications to subscribers registered with the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 to receive the event notifications. The selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 functions as a named logical channel for subscribers registered with the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 to receive the event notifications. The selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can perform a store and forward function to route event notifications from event notification producers/generators to subscribers. So in the example shown in FIG. 5, the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can route/publish the First Deployment Approval Event Notification from the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b (as event notification generator/producer) to the Extensible Approval Service 420 c (as event notification subscriber).

In particular, as shown in the example of FIG. 5, the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can consume the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 501 (including the First Approval Payload) submitted by the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b. The Deployment Event Broker 430 b then routes/publishes the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 502 to the Extensible Approval Service 420 c as subscriber to the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433, in response to the Deployment Event Broker 430 b consuming the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 501. It should be noted that the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can be repliable. For example, since the example selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 is repliable, the example selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 can accept the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification as a reply back notification from the Extensible Approval Service 420 c subscriber, in reply back to the prior First Deployment Approval Event Notification received by the Extensible Approval Service 420 c subscriber from the repliable selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433. A repliable topic can be defined as capable of accepting a reply back notification from a subscriber, in reply back to a prior notification received by the subscriber from the repliable topic. As will be discussed in greater detail subsequently herein, the Extensible Approval Service 420 c can reply back to the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b with a Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 504. However, in the example of FIG. 5, prior to any replying back, the Deployment Event Broker 430 b first publishes the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 502 to the Extensible Approval Service 420 c, in response to the Deployment Event Broker 430 b consuming the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 501.

The Extensible Approval Service 420 c can generate a Deployment Approval Workflow Processing Request 511 in response to the First Deployment Approval Notification 502. The Deployment Approval Workflow Processing Request 511 can include the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal.

In response to the Deployment Approval Workflow Processing Request 511, the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can process the Deployment Approval Workflow 429, so as to process the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal of the First Approval Payload into the Processed application component approval proposal, to be included in the Second Approval Payload. The Extensible Approval Service 420 c can be in communication with the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e to determine whether the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e is finished processing the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 (e.g. whether the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e is finished processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed application component approval proposal.) For example, this may be accomplished with Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e setting a flag of occurrence for the Extensible Approval Service 420 c, or by the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e issuing some sort of notification or notification message.

As shown in the example of FIG. 5, the Extensible Approval Service 420 c can generate a Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503 in response to an occurrence of the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e finishing processing of the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 (e.g. generate the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503 in response to an occurrence of the Workflow Processor 420 e finishing processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed application component approval proposal.) The Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503 includes the Second Approval Payload. The Second Approval Payload includes the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. As mentioned previously, example Schemas 434 a, 434 b of the Approval Provisioning Topics 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can use a data structure having a variable-length element like a property array, or in this case a processed approval array (e.g. key-value pair) for storing the Processed application component approval proposal of the Second Approval Payload, as shown for example in FIG. 5.

As mentioned previously, the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can be repliable. The Extensible Approval Service 420 c can reply back to the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b with the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503 including the Second Approval Payload. In turn, the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can reply back to the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b with the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 504 including the Second Approval Payload. Accordingly, in addition to being capable of accepting a reply back notification from a subscriber, the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 is also capable of sending a reply back notification to a generator/producer, in reply back to a prior notification received by the topic from the generator/producer. For example, the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 can reply back to the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b with the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 504, in reply back to the prior First Deployment Approval Event Notification received by the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 from the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b, as generator/producer of the First Deployment Approval Event Notification.

While an example manner of implementing the system 100 is illustrated in FIGS. 1A-1C, and an example manner of implementing the blueprints 202-208 and an example manner of implementing the multimachine service 210 is illustrated in FIG. 2, and an example manner of implementing installation 300 is illustrated in FIG. 3, and an example manner of implementing virtual appliance 320, Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324, Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b, Deployment Event Broker 430 b Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e and Catalog Item Application Component Properties and Approvals Database 460 b is illustrated in FIGS. 4A-4G, and an example manner of operating the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 is illustrated in FIG. 5, one or more of the elements, processes and/or devices illustrated in these foregoing figures may be combined, divided, re-arranged, omitted, eliminated and/or implemented in any other way.

Further, the example application 102, 102 a, the example deployment environment 104, the example application director 106, the example virtual infrastructure navigator 108, the example cloud provider 110, the example deployment environments 112, the example VMs 114, the example containers 114 a, the example topology generator 120, the example deployment plan generator 122, the example deployment director 124, the example blueprint 126, 127, the example deployment plans 128, the example catalog database 130, the example cloud interface 132, the example central package repository 134, the example blueprint display 135, the example cloud manager 138, the example blueprint manager 140, the example distributed execution managers 146A, 146B, the example application component 150, the example initial application component properties 154 a, the example initial virtual machine naming properties 156 a, the example initial virtual machine addressing properties 157 a, the example initial virtual machine resource allocation properties 158 a, the example applied deployment approval policy 159, the example visual depiction of application component 160, and/or, more generally, the example system 100 of FIGS. 1A-1C may be implemented by hardware, software, firmware and/or any combination of hardware, software and/or firmware.

Thus, for example, any of the example application 102, 102 a, the example deployment environment 104, the example application director 106, the example virtual infrastructure navigator 108, the example cloud provider 110, the example deployment environments 112, the example VMs 114, the example containers 114 a, the example topology generator 120, the example deployment plan generator 122, the example deployment director 124, the example blueprints 126, 127, the example deployment plans 128, the example catalog 130, the example cloud interface 132, the example central package repository 134, the example blueprint display 135, the example cloud manager 138, the example blueprint manager 140, the example distributed execution managers 146A, 146B, the example application component 150, the example initial application component properties 154 a, the example initial virtual machine naming properties 156 a, the example initial virtual machine addressing properties 157 a, the example initial virtual machine resource allocation properties 158 a, the example applied deployment approval policy 159, the example visual depiction of application component 160, and/or, more generally, the example system 100 of FIGS. 1A-1C could be implemented by one or more analog or digital circuit(s), logic circuits, programmable processor(s), application specific integrated circuit(s) (ASIC(s)), programmable logic device(s) (PLD(s)) and/or field programmable logic device(s) (FPLD(s)).

Further, the example blueprints 202, 206, 208, the example servers 210A, 210B, 210C, and/or, more generally, the example multi-machine blueprints of FIG. 2 may be implemented by hardware, software, firmware and/or any combination of hardware, software and/or firmware. Thus, for example, any of the example blueprints 202, 206, 208, the example servers 210A, 210B, 210C, and/or, more generally, the example multi-machine blueprints of FIG. 2 could be implemented by one or more analog or digital circuit(s), logic circuits, programmable processor(s), application specific integrated circuit(s) (ASIC(s)), programmable logic device(s) (PLD(s)) and/or field programmable logic device(s) (FPLD(s)).

Further, the example load balancer 310, the example Virtual Appliances 320, 322, the example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324, the example Component Servers 330 a-336 a, 330 b-336 b, the example Management Endpoints 340-344, the example Management Agents 350 a-356 a, 350 b-356 b and/or, more generally, the example installation 300 of FIG. 3 may be implemented by hardware, software, firmware and/or any combination of hardware, software and/or firmware. Thus, for example, any of the example load balancer 310, the example Virtual Appliances 320, 322, the example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324, the example Component Servers 330 a-336 a, 330 b-336 b, the example Management Endpoints 340-344, the example Management Agents 350 a-356 a, 350 b-356 b and/or, more generally, the example installation 300 of FIG. 3 could be implemented by one or more analog or digital circuit(s), logic circuits, programmable processor(s), application specific integrated circuit(s) (ASIC(s)), programmable logic device(s) (PLD(s)) and/or field programmable logic device(s) (FPLD(s)).

Further, the example Service Provisioner 410 a, example Service Provisioner 410 b, example Orchestrator 420 a, example Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b, example Deployment Approval Event Record 422, example Deployment Approval Event Information 423, example Deployment Approval Event Notification Generator 424, example Deployment Approval Timer 425, example Deployment Approval Processor 426, example Extensible Approval Service 420 c, example Plugin 420 d, example Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e, example Deployment Approval Workflow Communications Manager 427, example Deployment Approval Workflow Execution Unit 428, example Deployment Approval Workflow 429, example Event Broker 430 a, example Deployment Event Broker 430 b, example Deployment Event Subscription Manager 431, example Deployment Approval Topic Registry 432, example Approval Provisioning Topics 433, example Deployment Approval Schema 434, example Authentication Provider 440 a, example Authentication Provider 440 b, example Proxy 450 a, example Proxy 450 b, example Database 460 a, example Catalog Item Application Component Properties and Approvals Database 460 b, example Application Component 150, example Initial Application Component Properties 154 a, example Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b, example Processed application component approval proposals 154 c, example Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159, example Initial Virtual Machine Naming Properties 156 a, example Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Properties 157 a, example Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Properties 158 a, example Initial virtual machine naming approval proposal 156 b, example Initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal 157 b, example Initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal 158 b, example Processed Virtual Machine Naming Approval 156 c, example Processed Virtual Machine Addressing Approval 157 c, example Processed Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Approval Proposal 158 c, and/or, more generally, example Virtual Appliance 320 and example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 of FIGS. 4A-4G may be implemented by hardware, software, firmware and/or any combination of hardware, software and/or firmware.

Thus, for example, any of the example Service Provisioner 410 a, example Service Provisioner 410 b, example Orchestrator 420 a, example Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b, example Deployment Approval Event Record 422, example Deployment Approval Event Information 423, example Deployment Approval Event Notification Generator 424, example Deployment Approval Timer 425, example Deployment Approval Processor 426, example Extensible Approval Service 420 c, example Plugin 420 d, example Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e, example Deployment Approval Workflow Communications Manager 427, example Deployment Approval Workflow Execution Unit 428, example Deployment Approval Workflow 429, example Event Broker 430 a, example Deployment Event Broker 430 b, example Deployment Event Subscription Manager 431, example Deployment Approval Topic Registry 432, example Approval Provisioning Topics 433, example Deployment Approval Schema 434, example Authentication Provider 440 a, example Authentication Provider 440 b, example Proxy 450 a, example Proxy 450 b, example Database 460 a, example Catalog Item Application Component Properties and Approvals Database 460 b, example Application Component 150, example Initial Application Component Properties 154 a, example Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b, example Processed application component approval proposals 154 c, example Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159, example Initial Virtual Machine Naming Properties 156 a, example Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Properties 157 a, example Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Properties 158 a, example Initial virtual machine naming approval proposal 156 b, example Initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal 157 b, example Initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal 158 b, example Processed Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal 156 c, example Processed Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal 157 c, example Processed Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Approval Proposal 158 c, and/or, more generally, example Virtual Appliance 320 and example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 of FIGS. 4A-4G could be implemented by one or more analog or digital circuit(s), logic circuits, programmable processor(s), application specific integrated circuit(s) (ASIC(s)), programmable logic device(s) (PLD(s)) and/or field programmable logic device(s) (FPLD(s)).

Further, example Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b, example Deployment Event Broker 430 b, example Extensible Approval Service 420 c, example Plugin 420 d, example Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e, example Consume First Deployment Approval Event Notification 501, example Publish First Deployment Approval Event Notification 502, example Reply Back With Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503, example Reply Back With Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 504, example Approval Workflow Processing Request 511 and/or example manner of operating the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 as in FIG. 5 may be implemented by hardware, software, firmware and/or any combination of hardware, software and/or firmware.

Thus, for example, any of the example Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b, example Deployment Event Broker 430 b, example Extensible Approval Service 420 c, example Plugin 420 d, example Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e, example Consume First Deployment Approval Event Notification 501, example Publish First Deployment Approval Event Notification 502, example Reply Back With Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503, example Reply Back With Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 504, example Approval Workflow Processing Request 511 and/or example manner of operating the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 as in FIG. 5 could be implemented by one or more analog or digital circuit(s), logic circuits, programmable processor(s), application specific integrated circuit(s) (ASIC(s)), programmable logic device(s) (PLD(s)) and/or field programmable logic device(s) (FPLD(s)).

When reading any of the apparatus or system claims of this patent to cover a purely software and/or firmware implementation, at least one of example application 102, 102 a, the example application director 106, the example cloud provider 110, the example deployment environments 112, the example VMs 114, the example containers 114 a, the example topology generator 120, the example deployment plan generator 122, the example deployment director 124, the example blueprint 126, the example deployment plans 128, the example catalog database 130, the example cloud interface 132, the example central package repository 134, the example blueprint display 135, the example cloud manager 138, the example blueprint manager 140, the example distributed execution managers 146A, 146B, the example application component 150, the example initial application component properties 154 a, the example initial virtual machine naming properties 156 a, the example initial virtual machine addressing properties 157 a, the example initial virtual machine resource allocation properties 158 a, the example applied deployment approval policy 159, the example visual depiction of application component 160, and/or, more generally, the example system 100, example blueprints 202, 206, 208, the example servers 210A, 210B, 210C, and/or, more generally, the example multi-machine blueprints of FIG. 2 example load balancer 310, the example Virtual Appliances 320, 322, the example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324, the example Component Servers 330 a-336 a, 330 b-336 b, the example Management Endpoints 340-344, the example Management Agents 350 a-356 a, 350 b-356 b and/or, more generally, the example installation 300 of FIG. 3, example Service Provisioner 410 a, example Service Provisioner 410 b, example Orchestrator 420 a, example Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b, example Deployment Approval Event Record 422, example Deployment Approval Event Information 423, example Deployment Approval Event Notification Generator 424, example Deployment Approval Timer 425, example Deployment Approval Processor 426, example Extensible Approval Service 420 c, example Plugin 420 d, example Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e, example Deployment Approval Workflow Communications Manager 427, example Deployment Approval Workflow Execution Unit 428, example Deployment Approval Workflow 429, example Event Broker 430 a, example Deployment Event Broker 430 b, example Deployment Event Subscription Manager 431, example Deployment Approval Topic Registry 432, example Approval Provisioning Topics 433, example Deployment Approval Schema 434, example Authentication Provider 440 a, example Authentication Provider 440 b, example Proxy 450 a, example Proxy 450 b, example Database 460 a, example Catalog Item Application Component Properties and Approvals Database 460 b, example Application Component 150, example Initial Application Component Properties 154 a, example Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b, example Processed application component approval proposals 154 c, example Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159, example Initial Virtual Machine Naming Properties 156 a, example Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Properties 157 a, example Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Properties 158 a, example Initial virtual machine naming approval proposal 156 b, example Initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal 157 b, example Initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal 158 b, example Processed Virtual Machine Naming Approval 156 c, example Processed Virtual Machine Addressing Approval 157 c, example Processed Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Approval Proposal 158 c, and/or, more generally, example Virtual Appliance 320 and example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 of FIGS. 4A-4G, example Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b, example Deployment Event Broker 430 b, example Extensible Approval Service 420 c, example Plugin 420 d, example Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e, example Consume First Deployment Approval Event Notification 501, example Publish First Deployment Approval Event Notification 502, example Reply Back With Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503, example Reply Back With Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 504, example Approval Workflow Processing Request 511 and/or example manner of operating the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 as in FIG. 5 is/are hereby expressly defined to include a tangible computer readable storage device or storage disk such as a memory, a digital versatile disk (DVD), a compact disk (CD), a Blu-ray disk, etc. storing the software and/or firmware.

Further still, the example system 100 of FIGS. 1A-1C, and the example blueprints 202-208 and the example multimachine service 210 of FIG. 2, and the example installation 300 of FIG. 3, and the example virtual appliance 320 and the example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324, the example Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b and the example deployment event broker 430 b of FIGS. 4A-4G and the example Deployment Approval Event Notification system 50 0 of FIG. 5 may include one or more elements, processes and/or devices in addition to, or instead of, those illustrated in these foregoing figures, and/or may include more than one of any or all of the illustrated elements, processes and devices.

Example flowcharts representative of example machine readable instructions which may be executed to implement the example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 of FIGS. 4B-4G to manage deployment customization of an application for deployment in an application deployment environment of a cloud computing platform provider are shown in the flowchart of FIGS. 6A-6C.

In these examples, the machine readable instructions implement programs for execution by a processor such as the processor 712 shown in the example processor platform 700 discussed below in connection with FIG. 7. The programs may be embodied in software stored on a tangible computer readable storage medium such as a CD-ROM, a floppy disk, a hard drive, a digital versatile disk (DVD), a Blu-ray disk, or a memory associated with the processor 712, but the entire program and/or parts thereof could alternatively be executed by a device other than the processor 712 and/or embodied in firmware or dedicated hardware. Further, although the example programs are described with reference to the flowchart illustrated in FIGS. 6A-6C, many other methods of managing customizations via approval in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure may alternatively be used. For example, the order of execution of the blocks may be changed, and/or some of the blocks described may be changed, eliminated, or combined.

As mentioned above, the example processes of FIGS. 6A-6C may be implemented using coded instructions (e.g., computer and/or machine readable instructions) stored on a tangible computer readable storage medium such as a hard disk drive, a flash memory, a read-only memory (ROM), a compact disk (CD), a digital versatile disk (DVD), a cache, a random-access memory (RAM) and/or any other storage device or storage disk in which information is stored for any duration (e.g., for extended time periods, permanently, for brief instances, for temporarily buffering, and/or for caching of the information). As used herein, the term tangible computer readable storage medium is expressly defined to include any type of computer readable storage device and/or storage disk and to exclude propagating signals and to exclude transmission media. As used herein, “tangible computer readable storage medium” and “tangible machine readable storage medium” are used interchangeably. In some examples, the example processes of FIGS. 6A-6C may be implemented using coded instructions (e.g., computer and/or machine readable instructions) stored on a non-transitory computer and/or machine readable medium such as a hard disk drive, a flash memory, a read-only memory, a compact disk, a digital versatile disk, a cache, a random-access memory and/or any other storage device or storage disk in which information is stored for any duration (e.g., for extended time periods, permanently, for brief instances, for temporarily buffering, and/or for caching of the information). As used herein, the term non-transitory computer readable medium is expressly defined to include any type of computer readable storage device and/or storage disk and to exclude propagating signals and to exclude transmission media. As used herein, when the phrase “at least” is used as the transition term in a preamble of a claim, it is open-ended in the same manner as the term “comprising” is open ended. Comprising and all other variants of “comprise” are expressly defined to be open-ended terms. Including and all other variants of “include” are also defined to be open-ended terms. In contrast, the term consisting and/or other forms of consist are defined to be close-ended terms.

A flowchart representative of example machine readable instructions which may be executed to implement the example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 of FIGS. 4B-4G to manage deployment customization of an application for deployment in an application deployment environment of a cloud computing platform provider are shown in FIGS. 6A-6C. FIGS. 6A-6C depict a first flowchart representative of computer readable instructions that may be executed to implement the example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 of FIGS. 4B-4G to manage deployment customization of an application for deployment in an application deployment environment of a cloud computing platform provider. An example program 600 is illustrated beginning in FIG. 6A. Initially at block 602, at least one processor executes an instruction to apply a deployment approval policy to an application component that provides a logical template of an application for deployment in an application deployment environment of a cloud computing provider. The application component includes a plurality of initial application component properties associated with the application. The at least one processor executes an instruction to select a selected initial application component property, based on the deployment approval policy (block 604). The selected Initial Application Component Approval Proposal is included in generation of an Initial Application Component Approval Proposal (block 606).

For example, an example deployment approval policy can be applied to the Application Component 150 in the database 460 b (e.g. Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159.) The example deployment approval manager 420 b can generate the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal, for example via the Deployment Approval Processor 426 and the Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159. Generating the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal can include selecting a respective one of the initial application component properties 154 a. For example, via the Deployment Approval Processor 426, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 can select from among the plurality of Initial Application Component Properties 154 a to select for the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal, in accordance with the Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159. The Initial Application Component Property can include at least one of: an initial virtual machine naming property, an initial virtual machine addressing property, and an initial virtual machine resource allocation property. The Initial Application Component Approval Proposal can include at least one of: an initial virtual machine naming approval proposal, an initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal, and an initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal.

In another example, the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal can be a plurality of Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b. The deployment approval policy is applied to the Application Component 150 in the database 460 b (e.g. Applied Deployment Approval Policy 159). The Deployment Approval Manager 420 can select from among the plurality of Initial Application Component Properties 154 a to select for the Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b in accordance with the deployment approval policy 159. The Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b can include at least one of: an initial virtual machine naming approval proposal, an initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal, and an initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal. In yet another example, the selected initial application component property can be a first selected grouping of initial application component properties. The generating of the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal can include selecting the first selected grouping of initial application component properties to generate the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal. For example, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 can select the first selected grouping of initial application component properties to select for the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal. For example, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 can use wildcards and/or have multiple sub-values in a value field, which can be separated by a pre-defined symbol, to select the first selected grouping of initial application component properties to select for the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal.

In the example of FIG. 6A, in accordance with flowchart of example program 600, the at least one processor executes an instruction to generate a First Deployment Approval Notification including a First Approval Payload (block 608). For example, The Deployment Approval Event Notification Generator 424 of the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can generate a First Deployment Approval Event Notification in response to a Deployment Approval Event Record 422 that records Deployment Approval Event Information 423 about a deployment approval event occurrence. The first Deployment Approval Event Notification can include Deployment Approval Event Information 423, and can include a First Approval Payload including the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal. For example, the Deployment Approval Event Notification Generator 424 of the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b can submit the First Deployment Approval Event Notification to the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b for publication to the Extensible Approval Service 420 c.

In the example of FIG. 6A, in accordance with flowchart of example program 600, the Deployment Approval Manager Service can select a selected Approval Provisioning Topic of the Deployment Event Broker from among a Pre-Approval Provisioning Topic and a Post-Approval Provisioning Topic (block 610). The Deployment Event Broker can consume the First Deployment Event Notification (block 612). The Deployment Event Broker 430 b can consume the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 501 submitted by the Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b. Authentication provider 440 b can authenticate access to the Deployment Event Broker 430 b.

In the example of FIG. 6A, in accordance with flowchart of example program 600, the first deployment approval event notification can be published from a selected Approval Provisioning Topic of the Deployment Event Broker to an Extensible Approval Service (block 614). For example, the Deployment Event Broker 430 b shown in FIG. 4B, and shown in greater detail in FIG. 4D can include a Deployment Event Subscription Manager 431, a Deployment Approval Topic Registry 432 and a selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433. The Deployment Event Broker 430 b includes a selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 to publish the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 502 to the Extensible Approval Service 420 c, in response to the Deployment Event Broker 430 b consuming the First Deployment Approval Event Notification 501. The Extensible Approval Service 420 c can include a Plugin 420 d to facilitate extensibility of the Extensible Approval Service 420 c.

In the example of FIG. 6B, in accordance with flowchart of example program 600, the Extensible Approval Service can communicate a Deployment Approval Workflow Processing Request to a Deployment Approval Workflow Processor via the Plug-In Extensible Approval Service (block 616). This can include communicating the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal from the extensible approval service to a deployment approval workflow processor. For example, the Extensible Approval Service 420 c can include at least one Plugin 420 d so as to facilitate extensibility of the Extensible Approval Service 420 c. The Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can be employed to process a deployment approval workflow 429. The Plugin 420 d of the Extensible Approval Service 420 c can facilitate communication between the Extensible Approval Service 420 c and the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e. The Extensible Approval Service 420 c can generate a Deployment Approval Workflow Processing Request in response to the First Deployment Approval Notification. The Deployment Approval Workflow Processing Request can include the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal.

In the example of FIG. 6B, in accordance with flowchart of example program 600, the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor can process a Deployment Approval Workflow in response to the Deployment Approval Workflow Processing Request (block 618). This can include processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the processed Application Component Approval (block 620). For example, the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can process the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 to process the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal of the First Approval Payload into the Processed application component approval proposal to be included in the Second Approval Payload. As mentioned previously, the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal of the First Approval Payload can include at least one of an Initial Virtual Machine Naming Approval Proposal, an Initial Virtual Machine Addressing Approval Proposal, and an Initial Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Approval Proposal. The Processed Application Component Approval Proposal of the Second Approval Payload can include at least one of a Processed Virtual Machine Naming Proposal Approval, a Processed Virtual Machine Addressing Proposal Approval, and a Processed Virtual Machine Resource Allocation Proposal Approval. The Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can process the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 in response to the Deployment Approval Workflow Processing Request 511. The Deployment Approval Workflow 429 can process the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. In another example, the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal can be a plurality of Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b, and the deployment approval workflow processor can process the Initial Application Component Approval Proposals 154 b into a plurality of Processed Application Component Approval Proposals 154 c. For example, an Initial Application Component Approval Proposal of the First Approval Payload can be processed by the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e into a Processed Application Component Approval Proposal to be included in a Second Approval Payload.

In the example of FIG. 6B, in accordance with flowchart of example program 600, at block 622 the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor determines whether the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor is finished processing the Deployment Approval Workflow (e.g. processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.) If the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor determines that the processing of the Deployment Approval Workflow is finished (e.g. processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal is finished), then execution of example program 600 continues at block 624.

In the example of FIG. 6B, in accordance with flowchart of example program 600, at block 634 the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor communicates the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal to the Extensible Approval Service, after the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor is finished processing the Deployment Approval Workflow (e.g. is finished processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.) For example, the Extensible Approval Service 420 c can be in communication with the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e to determine whether the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e is finished processing the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 (e.g. whether the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e is finished processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.) The Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e can respond to the Extensible Approval Service 420 c with the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal to be included in the Second Approval Payload, after the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e finishes processing of the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 (e.g. after the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e is finished processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.)

In the example of FIG. 6B, in accordance with flowchart of example program 600, at block 626 the Extensible Approval Service generates a Second Deployment Approval Event Notification in response to an occurrence of the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor finishing processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. The Second Deployment Approval Event Notification includes a Second Approval Payload. The Second Approval Payload includes the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. For example, the Extensible Approval Service 420 c can generate a Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503 in response to an occurrence of the Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e finishing processing of the Deployment Approval Workflow 429 (e.g. generate the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503 in response to an occurrence of the Workflow Processor 420 e finishing processing the Initial Application Component Approval Proposal into the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.) The Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503 includes the second approval payload. The second approval payload includes the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal.

In the example of FIG. 6C, in accordance with flowchart of example program 600, at block 628 the Extensible Approval Service replies back to the selected Approval Provisioning Topic of the Deployment Event Broker with the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification including the Second Approval Payload. The Second Approval Payload includes the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. For example, the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can be repliable. The Extensible Approval Service 420 c can reply back to the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b with the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 503 including the Second Approval Payload.

In the example of FIG. 6C, in accordance with flowchart of example program 600, at block 630 the Deployment Event Broker can reply back to the Deployment Approval Manager with the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification including the Second Approval Payload. The Second Approval Payload includes the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. For example, the selected Approval Provisioning Topic 433 of the Deployment Event Broker 430 b can reply back to the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b with the Second Deployment Approval Event Notification 504 including the Second Approval Payload.

In the example of FIG. 6C, in accordance with flowchart of example program 600, at block 632, the Deployment Approval Manager 420 b can determine approval of one of the Initial Application Component Properties based upon the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal. In another example, the Processed Application Component Approval Proposal can be a plurality of Processed Application Component Approval Proposals 154 c, and the Deployment Approval Manager can determine approval of the Initial Application Component Properties based upon the Processed Application Component Approval Proposals 154 c. After executing block 632, execution of example program 600 can end.

Although the example program 600 of FIGS. 6A-6C is described in connection with managing deployment customization of an application for deployment in an application deployment environment of a cloud computing platform provider, the example program 600 of FIGS. 6A-6C implemented in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure can be used in a multi-user scenario in which hundreds or thousands of users obtain deployment customization using Approvals from Cloud Provider 110. For example, while manually managing deployment customizations in a manual fashion for such quantities of users would be overly burdensome or near impossible within required time constraints, examples disclosed herein may be used to process deployment customizations via approval and using the operations and Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 to manage deployment customizations via approval and deploy large quantities of virtual machines 114 and/or containers 114 a in an efficient and streamlined fashion without burdening and frustrating end users with long customization times to access such virtual machines 114 and/or containers 114 a.

FIG. 7 is a block diagram of an example processor platform 700 capable of executing the instructions of the flowchart of FIGS. 6A-6C to implement the example Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance of FIGS. 4B-4G. The processor platform 700 of the illustrated example includes a processor 712. The processor 712 of the illustrated example is hardware employing virtualization. For example, the processor 712 can be implemented by one or more integrated circuits, logic circuits, microprocessors or controllers from any desired family or manufacturer. As already discussed in detail previously herein, the hardware of processor 712 is virtualized using virtualization such as VMs and/or containers. In the example of FIG. 7, the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 may be implemented by one or more VM's or containers, so as to virtualize the hardware of processor 712. In the example of FIG. 7, the Deployment Approval Virtual Appliance 324 includes Service Provisioner 410 b, Deployment Approval Manager Service 420 b, Extensible Approval Service 420 c including Plugin 420 d, Deployment Approval Workflow Processor 420 e, Deployment Event Broker 430 b, Authentication Provider 440 b and Catalog Item Approval Database 460 b.

The processor 712 of the illustrated example includes a local memory 713 (e.g., a cache), and executes instructions to implement the example operations and management component 406 or portions thereof. The processor 712 of the illustrated example is in communication with a main memory including a volatile memory 714 and a non-volatile memory 716 via a bus 718. The volatile memory 714 may be implemented by Synchronous Dynamic Random Access Memory (SDRAM), Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM), RAMBUS Dynamic Random Access Memory (RDRAM) and/or any other type of random access memory device. The non-volatile memory 716 may be implemented by flash memory and/or any other desired type of memory device. Access to the main memory 714, 716 is controlled by a memory controller.

The processor platform 700 of the illustrated example also includes an interface circuit 720. The interface circuit 720 may be implemented by any type of interface standard, such as an Ethernet interface, a universal serial bus (USB), and/or a PCI express interface.

In the illustrated example, one or more input devices 722 are connected to the interface circuit 720. The input device(s) 722 permit(s) a user to enter data and commands into the processor 712. The input device(s) can be implemented by, for example, an audio sensor, a microphone, a keyboard, a button, a mouse, a touchscreen, a track-pad, a trackball, isopoint and/or a voice recognition system.

One or more output devices 724 are also connected to the interface circuit 720 of the illustrated example. The output devices 724 can be implemented, for example, by display devices (e.g., a light emitting diode (LED), an organic light emitting diode (OLED), a liquid crystal display, a cathode ray tube display (CRT), a touchscreen, a tactile output device, a printer and/or speakers). The interface circuit 720 of the illustrated example, thus, typically includes a graphics driver card, a graphics driver chip or a graphics driver processor.

The interface circuit 720 of the illustrated example also includes a communication device such as a transmitter, a receiver, a transceiver, a modem and/or network interface card to facilitate exchange of data with external machines (e.g., computing devices of any kind) via a network 726 (e.g., an Ethernet connection, a digital subscriber line (DSL), a telephone line, coaxial cable, a cellular telephone system, etc.).

The processor platform 700 of the illustrated example also includes one or more mass storage devices 728 for storing software and/or data. Examples of such mass storage devices 728 include flash devices, floppy disk drives, hard drive disks, optical compact disk (CD) drives, optical Blu-ray disk drives, RAID systems, and optical digital versatile disk (DVD) drives.

Coded instructions 732 representative of the example machine readable instructions of FIGS. 6A-6C may be stored in the mass storage device 728, in the volatile memory 714, in the non-volatile memory 716, and/or on a removable tangible computer readable storage medium such as a CD or DVD.

Copending U.S. patent application entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Limiting Data Transferred Over the Network by Interpreting Part of the Data as a Metaproperty”, filed on the same day as the present application, by Ventsyslav Raikov, Lazarin Lazarov, Boris Savov and Rostislav Georgiev is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. Copending U.S. patent application entitled “Methods and Apparatus for Event-Based Extensibility of System Logic”, filed on the same day as the present application, by Boris Savov, Igor Stoyanov and Rostislav Georgiev is hereby incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.

The various aspects, features and/or implementations as disclosed above can be used alone or in various combinations. Although certain example methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture have been disclosed herein, the scope of coverage of this patent is not limited thereto. On the contrary, this patent covers all methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture fairly falling within the scope of the claims of this patent. 

What is claimed is:
 1. An apparatus to manage application properties of an application for deployment in an application deployment environment of a cloud computing provider, the apparatus comprising: at least one memory; instructions in the apparatus; and processor circuitry to execute the instructions to: store data including an application component that provides a logical template of an application, the application component including a plurality of initial application component properties associated with the application; apply a deployment approval policy to the application component that provides a logical template of the application; select from among the plurality of initial application component properties associated with the application a selected initial application component property based on the deployment approval policy; generate an initial application component approval proposal to deploy a virtual machine, the initial application component approval proposal proposing approval of one of the initial application component properties including an initial virtual machine naming property, an initial virtual machine addressing property, and an initial virtual machine allocation property; store, using a data structure having a variable-length element, the initial application component approval proposal; publish a first deployment approval event notification via a selected approval provisioning topic of an approval event in response to consuming the initial application component approval proposal; process the initial application component approval proposal into a processed application component approval proposal; store, using the data structure having the variable-length element, the processed application component approval proposal; and reply, in response to the initial application component approval proposal being processed, a second deployment approval event notification including the initial application component approval proposal using the approval provisioning topic associated with the first deployment approval event notification.
 2. The apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein the initial application component approval proposal includes at least one of: an initial virtual machine naming approval proposal, an initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal; and an initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal.
 3. The apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is to execute the instructions to generate the first deployment approval event notification in response to a deployment approval event record that records deployment approval event information about a deployment approval event occurrence, the first deployment approval event notification including a first approval payload, the first approval payload including the initial application component approval proposal.
 4. The apparatus as defined in claim 3, wherein the processor circuitry is to execute the instructions to consume the first deployment approval event notification.
 5. The apparatus as defined in claim 3, wherein the processor circuitry is to execute the instructions to publish the first deployment approval event notification to in response to consuming the first deployment approval event notification.
 6. The apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein the processor circuitry is to execute the instructions to: process a deployment approval workflow.
 7. The apparatus as defined in claim 3, wherein the processor circuitry is to execute the instructions to determine approval of one of the initial application component properties based upon the processed application component approval proposal.
 8. A method of managing application properties of an application for deployment in an application deployment environment of a cloud computing provider, the method comprising: applying, by executing an instruction with at least one processor, a deployment approval policy to an application component that provides a logical template of the application, the application component including a plurality of initial application component properties associated with the application; selecting, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, a selected initial application component property based on the deployment approval policy; generating, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, an initial application component approval proposal to deploy a virtual machine proposing approval of the selected initial application component property including an initial virtual machine naming property, an initial virtual machine addressing property, and an initial virtual machine allocation property; storing, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, using a data structure having a variable-length element, the initial application component approval proposal; publishing, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, a first deployment approval event notification via a selected approval provisioning topic in response to consuming the initial application component approval proposal; processing the initial application component approval proposal into a processed application component approval proposal; storing, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, using the data structure having the variable-length element, the processed application component approval proposal; and replying, in response to the initial application component approval proposal being processed, by executing an instruction with the at least one processor, a second deployment approval event notification including the initial application component approval proposal using the approval provisioning topic associated with the first deployment approval event notification.
 9. The method as defined in claim 8, wherein the initial application component approval proposal includes at least one of: an initial virtual machine naming approval proposal; an initial virtual machine addressing approval proposal; and an initial virtual machine resource allocation approval proposal.
 10. The method as defined in claim 8, further including generating the first deployment approval event notification that includes a first approval payload, the first approval payload including the initial application component approval proposal.
 11. The method as defined in claim 10, wherein the generating of the first deployment approval event notification is in response to a deployment approval event record that records deployment approval information about a deployment approval event occurrence.
 12. The method as defined in claim 11, further including consuming the first deployment approval event notification from a deployment approval manager at a deployment event broker.
 13. The method as defined in claim 12, wherein the approval provisioning topic is a pre-approval provisioning topic, and further including publishing the first deployment approval event notification from the pre-approval provisioning topic of the deployment event broker to an extensible approval service.
 14. The method as defined in claim 13, wherein the extensible approval service includes a plugin to facilitate extensibility of the extensible approval service.
 15. The method as defined in claim 12, further including replying back from the deployment event broker to a deployment approval manager with the second deployment approval event notification including a second approval payload, the second approval payload including the processed application component approval proposal.
 16. The method as defined in claim 11, further including determining approval of one of the initial application component properties based upon the processed application component approval proposal.
 17. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising machine readable instructions to manage application properties of an application for deployment in an application deployment environment of a cloud computing provider, the instructions, when executed, cause a logic circuit to at least: apply a deployment approval policy to an application component that provides a logical template of an application to be deployed in an application deployment environment of a cloud computing provider, the application component including a plurality of initial application component properties associated with the application; select from among the plurality of initial application component properties a selected initial application component property based on the deployment approval policy; generate an initial application component approval proposal to deploy a virtual machine from the selected initial application component property including an initial virtual machine naming property, an initial virtual machine addressing property, and an initial virtual machine allocation property; store, using a data structure having a variable-length element, the initial application component approval proposal; publish a first deployment approval event notification via a selected approval provisioning topic in response to consuming the initial application component approval proposal; process the initial application component approval proposal into a processed application component approval proposal; store, using the data structure having the variable-length element, the processed application component approval proposal; and reply, in response to the initial application component approval proposal being processed, a second deployment approval event notification including the initial application component approval proposal using the approval provisioning topic associated with the first deployment approval event notification.
 18. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as defined in claim 17, wherein: the selected initial application component property is a plurality of selected initial application properties; and the instructions to cause the logic circuit to generate the initial application component approval proposal are to cause the logic circuit to generate the initial application component approval proposal from the plurality of selected initial application component properties.
 19. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as defined in claim 17, wherein: the selected initial application component property is a first selected grouping of initial application component properties; and the instructions to cause the logic circuit to generate the initial application component approval proposal are to cause the logic circuit to generate the initial application component approval proposal from the first selected grouping of initial application component properties.
 20. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as defined in claim 17, wherein the instructions are to cause the logic circuit to generate the first deployment approval event notification including a first approval payload, the first approval payload including the initial application component approval proposal.
 21. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as defined in claim 20, wherein the instructions are to cause the logic circuit to publish the first deployment approval event notification from the approval provisioning topic of a deployment event broker.
 22. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as defined in claim 17, wherein the instructions are to cause the logic circuit to process the initial application component approval proposal into the processed application component approval proposal.
 23. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as defined in claim 22, wherein the instructions are to cause the logic circuit to reply back from a deployment event broker to a deployment approval manager with the second deployment approval event notification including a second approval payload, the second approval payload including the processed application component approval proposal.
 24. The non-transitory computer-readable storage medium as defined in claim 23, wherein the instructions are to cause the logic circuit to determine approval of one of the initial application component properties based upon the processed application component approval proposal. 